They are very overclockable. YMMV on exactly how high you can go. If you get lucky you can get 3.6GHz out of it, but I wouldn't expect to get quite that high. Mine tops out at around 3.2GHz. My friends can reach 3.6GHz but it runs way to hot at that speed and instead settled for 3.4GHz on his.

I guess I got a good chip. I've booted into windows at 3.8Ghz, granted I was afraid to look at the temps, but it booted!
Everyday for me I run on 3.5Ghz. It's smokin fast, and the temps are pretty good also.

And for $215 at at the egg, I agree with Roots. Nothing can beat it IMO.

I did a chipcon prometia phase cooling rig for a fellow with too much money some time back. Overclocked a p4 3.2 to 4.7. A wee hairy since I am no overclocker and I am sure it would have went much further. Random restarts scare me Ran solid @ 5 celsius however all said and done Bless them old aBit mobo's!

Back to my concern however about you building a true gaming rig in regards to sli. Far be it for me to tell you to blindly go and purchase an intel or amd processor. Carefully check the REAL performance boost in game as Ramon initially suggested is not there and later based solely on "price=lackofperformance2." The horsepower of sli is real and for you to decide. One thought however would be to ensure you get a decent mobo/chipset and grab one 9800 now and one later when the prices come down if need be. Vista and whether or not I was utilizing DirectX 10 would probably be the biggest deciding factor there from my perspective.

Gaming on a PC makes little financial sense and why niche' gamers like myself, many others and possibly yourself are more than willing to pay for the best. 20 frames per second better could very well be the difference between you getting pwznered by that nublet with the same ping as you Otherwise we would be playing our ps3's, Xboxes or wii's all night right? A lot more games on them darn consoles to enjoy!

Of course this does not apply if you are twinking out on WoW as so many others do. I swear my psp has better graphics than WoW That fyi has a 266mhz processor

I didn't "suggest" there is no REAL performance gain. What I said was...

There is a big difference between SLI benchmarks and ingame performance. While there are many games that benifit, many don't, atleast very little. Some even lose performance with an SLI setup.

Please read a bit more carefully before misquoting someone. Obviously you're a fan of SLI, and that's fine, but please don't put words into my mouth. If you can show me where I blatantly said there is NO performance boost to be had, I will graciously STUF, if you can't, I suggest you do the same.

My apologies to the OP for straying off topic, just don't like being misquoted by someone in an attempt to make themselves look (sound) smart.

I have owned both Intel & Amd, It really depends on the application, game engine
and task you are using it for.... I think the memory controller on Intel and Amd are
totally different architectures and perform different under certain conditions...
game engines that can implement better dual core usage my benefit from intels
architecture and some from amd's. I don't think anyone can win this debate it's
older then the floppy disk..

Ramon you are incorrect and overly opinionated and this hinders you from offering others sound advice.

Base any of your statements on fact and not what others have told you or your pocket book prohibits you from purchasing. Research any of the questions I have asked opposed to excusing your own banter and apologizing for going off topic.

1 - Will a newer 9800 offer a single card solution right now in regards to running cutting edge games in all their glory on a large monitor (24"+) at a very high resolution?

2 - What size monitor does the original poster plan on gaming on? Something to consider is if you will ever dabble in web design, code editing or picture and video editing. Bigger is way better the older you get!

Personally I used to just game, surf and perform other general computing tasks MaXiMuSiZeMe24. Then came Dream Weaver, The Gimp, Notepad ++, Vegas Studio and my eyes and efficiency cried out for at least a 24" monitor. I am only 37 and guess that by the time I am 40 will have to use my kids 33" lcd tv.

If you have the money and an additional $500 is incidental as it is to many others who demand top notch performance then go sli.

If you have to pinch pennies and work overtime to pay for a hobby then go Ramon's route.

If you are looking for the middle road then looking into a single 9800 for now and doing a wait see on price versus performance is still the best advice I can think of.

By any account. I look forward to hearing about your new build and can anticipate your excitement over firing up that new game that your existing computer cannot handle. It is just like driving your first Corvette off the lot and waking up the next morning thinking it was all just a wicked dream only to realize "Holy Schnikes!" It is still in the garage and then feeling somewhat guilty over purchasing such a luxury

What about my statement isn't fact? I'm not saying you are wrong, but it is a fact that not all games benifit equally from SLI. It is also a fact that some games benifit very little. You seem to suggest that SLI is going to make everything run a lot better. It won't, weather you want to believe it or not. I clearly stated that SLI will benifit many games, but the OP needs to have ALL the information which includes the FACT (not opinion) that not all games benifit. Whch is information you are not providing as you seem to have your own agenda.

You have thus far failed to show me where I said that SLI has no benifits yet you keep running off at the mouth, somehow getting the differences between fact and opinion confused.

"I don't think SLI is worth it" is indeed an opinion

"SLI does not benifit all games equally" is a fact

Again, i'm not really sure what your issue is. I never disagreed with what you're saying, I simply offered additional information as to the cons of SLI that you left out. If you're looking for top notch performance, might as well wait until next month and get a single GT200 card which will end up costing the same as an SLI setup and quite likely blow it out the water.

If your tauting that SLI is the bomb-diggity, you obviously never played Vanguard: Saga of Hero's when it was released.

Not that the game didnt have its unholy share of glitches, bugs and tendencies to crash ... It did have one special thing going for it: It was completely ill designed with SLI and if you wanted to even play, you had to switch to single card mode because the performance sucked in SLI. I think it took six or nine months after it sold to SOE for that even to be addressed the problem was so baffling.

DoubleK obviously has an infatuation with SLI and refuses to believe it has certain limitations. When confronted with certain facts, he'll write them off as opinions and proceed to tell you about the wet dream he had of his vette.

DoubleK obviously has an infatuation with SLI and refuses to believe it has certain limitations. When confronted with certain facts, he'll write them off as opinions and proceed to tell you about the wet dream he had of his vette.

HAHAHA!

Frankly speaking, SLI is a marketing ploy for you to spend more money.

It is a known fact that unless you have money stuffed in mattresses in the three extra bedrooms of your mansion, buying ONE single good card is going to do you better then getting two cheaper cards for SLI.

SLI has to be built into the programs for them to have much of a difference. Major titles like Quake and Crysis are going to have the time to develop that extra code but you will not find it in your run of the mill games nor will you find it in MMO's typically because they don't have the time to spend on it. So even stating that "Gaming" is going to be the only reason isn't really true. More specifically, FPS will be the centralized location for SLI and smaller percentages of games outside of FPS will have optimizations for SLI.

PS: I spent the entire day trying to think of the word i wanted to say and it finally came to me ... optimized. jeebus its been a day.

I have yet to see any link yet from you from a reputable source claiming sli is worthless or not worth the money as you suggest Ramon. Instead I see mudslinging and an overly opinionated rebuttal based on your own preconception that money always has to be an issue. Generally this tends to be true when you have very little or still are in the basement.

Prove you can run my resolutions on most of the blockbuster pc titles with one card with all the settings maxed.

Funny thing is this isn't the real issue. The real issue has been ignored because of the bickering. Enough already. I challenge you to post a picture of your weiner to photobucket or something and whomever has the smaller frank wins.

With that said, MaXiMuSiZeMe24 I do apologize for getting off topic. How big of a monitor will you be using and how much can you afford? Once we get an idea I am quite sure it will become easier to put together a screaming fps crunching computer for you with this over abundance of know-how around here.

This really has far less to do with money than you're giving credit for at this point. I'm not sure why you're trying so hard to convince everyone you've got so much disposable income. I'm all for people buying the best they can which is why if someone spent $5-600 on a GT280 (coming next month) I wouldn't object in the least. SLI on the other hand has drawbacks, technical ones.
I'm going to edit this to make it as simple as possible since too many words are confusing some people.

I never said SLI is worthless

I specifically said that SLI has advantages, the example you provide with the high resolutions is one of them. I don't have to prove a single card can run those resolutions because I never said it could.

I said SLI has it's drawbacks. Above and beyond monetary concerns

Not all games benefit equally. Some see a nice bump while others see very little.

A select few even lose performance

More stability and compatibility issues

Have to get an nVidia chipset (unless you go with a skulltrail platform) which is inferior to Intel in terms of stability and compatibility, especially when it comes to RAM.

Nothing in that third bullet is an opinion

If SLI is for you, go for it, I'm not saying not to. Why you object to someone knowing it's draw backs is beyond me.

Research the differences between fact and opinion opposed to excusing your own banter and apologizing for going off topic.